Parksville woman takes a journey to discovery

A local daycare owner says she followed her instincts and walked 776 km on a journey of discovery.

Lynn Moore, 68, said she felt a calling that took her on a seven- week journey on the Camino de Santiago, a famous pilgrimage that runs from France to Spain.

“I walked 20 km (a day) for a few weeks straight,” Moore said.

She started her journey at the Saint-Jean-Pied-de-Port in France and followed the road until she reached Santiago de Compostela in Spain.

She prepared for the journey by backpacking around Parksville and training at the gym. “You carry everything you wear,” Moore said.

“The terrain was nothing you could prepare yourself for,” she said. “I’ve never been in so many churches or walked over (that much) cobblestone in my life.”

It was a journey to discover who she was, she said. “How often do you walk four to five hours by yourself, going forward?” Moore said.

She documented her entire journey on her Facebook Page “Lynn’s Camino Journey.”

Moore said the famous pilgrimage was also part of

The Way, a movie from 2010 that starred Martin Sheen.

She said she was too exhausted to be lonely and met good people along the way, some of which were walking for a cause.

“A lot of people don’t make it,” she said.

Moore received two certificates at the end of her journey which were written in Latin, stating that Moore completed the Camino de Santiago.

Moore arrived back in Parksville on June 10. She plans to sell her daycare, Moore said, as she said she is entering a new stage in her life. “There’s a different awareness, a deeper peace in me,” Moore said.